Never Meant To Cut So Deep
by WhiteWings9
Summary: Gilbert wakes up in a stranger's room after a one night's stand, and finds he has accidentally stumbled into the life of an artist. Russia/Prussia. Brief smut.


**Never Meant To Cut So Deep**

Gilbert woke to a crippling thirst and a head that felt swollen twice its usual size. He cracked open an eyelid, from the side of his face not pressed into the pillow, and found he was in a darkened room, naked but for the bedcovers tangled around him on a sizeable bed. His gaze flitted over the contents on a side table; an ashtray, a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka, half empty, some packets of condoms. He shut his eyes and blinked them back open, and made to struggle out of the stifling covers when a voice softly called, "Don't move."

Gilbert tilted up a little to look at the foot of the bed. He caught sight of the man he had allowed to seduce him the night before, some tall, broad-shouldered guy with an accent and a long, ridiculous scarf, who sat now in a chair with his feet propped up on the bed and a large sketchbook propped against his knees. He was wearing the scarf still, wound loosely about his neck with the ends tossed over his shoulders, and nothing else but a pair of loose-fitting jeans stained with paint and fraying at the hems.

_Ivan_, Gilbert half-remembered, _that's his name_.

He flopped back down with a groan, brought a hand to his face. He swallowed, licked his lips, found his swollen tongue to provide all the comfort of sandpaper. "Water," he rasped.

Ivan set down his sketchbook and charcoal pencil, got up and padded to the bathroom. He re-emerged with a full glass of water, walked round the side of the bed to offer it to Gilbert who took it and drank in big, greedy gulps. Ivan returned to his seat, picked up his sketchbook and pencil.

Feeling much less like reanimated death, Gilbert settled against the headboard and took a better look around the room. It was a little studio with a floor-to-ceiling window to his left, with the blinds drawn against the afternoon glare. Art canvases of various sizes and differing levels of completion stacked against the wall to his right, beside an empty easel and a spindly table with a tall vase of sunflowers. The room split at the end into a kitchenette, the breakfast counter covered in art materials; tubes of paint, clusters of paint brushes set in recycled jars, a heap of colourfully stained rags.

"You some kind of artist?" he said, a little redundantly. Ivan turned a page in his sketchbook, drew his pencil across the fresh sheet.

"Something like that," he said.

A pause.

"So what're you drawing?"

"Why, you."

"Can I see?"

Ivan scratched in a few final lines and handed his sketchbook over to Gilbert. Gilbert twisted it the right way round and stared at the sketched image of himself, all high nose and bed-tousled hair, a few pencil traces across his torso marking his scars.

"Very handsome."

He made to hand it back to Ivan, but fumbled and dropped it with a muffled smack, scattering loose pages all over the bed. He cursed, "Ah shit! Sorry man," and gathered together all the sheets he could reach, Ivan leaping up to do the same, plucking up his sketchbook. When he was sure they have caught all the stray papers, Gilbert idly glanced through the ones he had collected. Quite a number of the sketches were of a woman – or a very pretty man.

Ivan snatched the papers from him. He looked more than a little flustered. Gilbert felt a slow grin forming on his lips.

"Who was that?"

"No-one," Ivan said, automatically, in a tone that anyone who knew him would know to take for a warning. But Gilbert only pressed recklessly on.

"Someone out of your league?"

Ivan finished cramming the papers back into his book, looked up with hollow eyes to meet Gilbert's.

"Something like that," he said quietly.

Gilbert took the hint to shut up this time.

The smile Ivan put on did little to ease Gilbert since his eyes remained icy. But the hand gliding up his arm was warm and gentle, and the lips seeking his were soft. Gilbert allowed Ivan to taste him, accepting his probing tongue and sucking a little at it with deliberately lewd slurping sounds. Ivan's hand combed into his hair, gently cradling the back of his head. Then he tightened his grip, tightened it enough to hurt, and Gilbert let out an indignant yelp as their lips pulled apart.

Ivan trailed his mouth down the side of Gilbert's jaw, down, down to his neck, alternating soft kisses with little nips of his teeth. Gilbert sat curving bodily into Ivan's grip, eyes watering, breath ragged, his own hands clawing, tangling into Ivan's, willing him to loosen his hold. It hurt, but the pain was mixing deliciously with the pleasure of Ivan suckling at his neck, thumb and forefinger tweaking at a nipple.

"Such an honest body you have," Ivan said, hot breath ghosting over the wet, angry bruise he had left on Gilbert's skin. His gestured towards Gilbert's naked arousal to indicate what he meant.

"You're a bastard, you know that?" was Gilbert's retort. He squirmed with want, with need, muscles taut, flexing with tension. _Touch me_, his body begged, but Gilbert was not going to voice his plea.

Ivan let out a little laugh. "I've heard worse."

* * *

Entry for Day 3 of the 30 Days Of Writing A Drabble A Day Challenge.


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